Benjamin Walker Gets Presidential (Again) in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson star Benjamin Walker is headed back to the White House in another presidential role, this time on the big screen. Walker has nabbed the lead in the upcoming 3D project Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, adapted from the Seth Grahame-Smith novel of the same name. Grahame-Smith, who also penned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, will adapt the screenplay and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Day Watch) is set to direct.

In Grahame-Smith’s novel, a young Abraham Lincoln’s watches his mother die of "milk sickness," only to discover later that her affliction was actually caused by vampires. Thus begins the “real” story of Honest Abe, which revolves around the ax-wielding, vampire-slaying president's quest to rid the world of the undead, and is presented as the real conflict behind the Civil War.

Before playing a rock star president in the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which shuttered on Broadway on January 2, 2011, Walker appeared in films like Kinsey and Flags of our Fathers, and on the Great White Way in Inherit the Wind and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, where he met his now-fiancée Mamie Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep and star of TV's Off the Map.

While this may not be Walker’s first time playing a president, it also isn't the first macho film role he's landed. He was cast as Beast in the upcoming action flick X-Men: First Class, but turned down the role for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson’s Broadway run. Bloody Boody may be no more, but it looks like everything’s working out for the best. When asked in his Broadway.com Ask A Star which President he would love to play next, Walker's choice was Abraham Lincoln. Why? "For obvious reasons,” he said. Who knew those reasons included wooden stakes as much as stovepipe hats?

Bekmambetov will co-produce with Tim Burton and Jim Lemley. Shooting is scheduled to begin in March, and this badass new Abe is scheduled to be released in theaters in June 2012.